Knock on the Sky
by Janissa11
Summary: An AU look at the show's beginnings, in which Dean, not John, is the one who's gone missing. Gen, WIP.
1. Last Call

**Knock on the Sky**

**By EB**

**©2006**

I am but mad north-north-west: When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.  
(Wm. Shakespeare)

Call me unpredictable, tell me that I'm unreliable  
Rainbows I'm inclined to pursue  
Call me irresponsible, yes I'm unreliable  
But it's undeniably true that I'm irresponsibly mad for you  
(Sammy Cahn)

**Chapter One**

**Last Call**

It yanked him out of sleep, sitting bolt upright in bed, panting like he'd just finished running a marathon.

Sam looked around, expecting a threat, something. Nothing but the quiet bedroom, the steady red stare of the alarm clock. Four twenty-two, darkest part of the night, and Jess lay on her belly, hands tucked under her pillow and one bare shoulder peeking out from under the covers. Fast asleep, just like he should be.

He rubbed his face and felt the slick of sweat on his forehead. Christ, what, a nightmare? He could feel the details slipping away already, just the feeling left over, fear and shock and urgency like an ache in his bones. Do something, he'd been trying to something in that dream but he couldn't remember what. Only that if he didn't, if he failed, someone was going to die. Jess? Didn't feel like Jess. A friend?

It wasn't until he'd padded into the bathroom and run cold water, splashing it over and over on his face, that he thought, Might have been Dean. Or Dad.

Sam dried his face slowly on a towel, staring at his reflection. Just a dream. Dreams were unsettling, downtime trotting-out of your worries, fears, most deep-seated feelings. Just a brain dump, and he was stressed, finals and the interview a couple of weeks down the line, like a glowing neon sign saying "Your Future Here." Stress. Explained a lot.

But he looked back at the bed, at Jess sleeping in a neat huddle, and knew he wasn't going to rejoin her tonight. Not and take a chance he'd dream again. Brain fart or not, he wasn't going back to whatever that place had been. Not willingly, not tonight.

He made coffee and sipped it on the back step, watching the slow pinking of the sky, thinking the grass was looking pretty damn shaggy and a little dried out, should water instead of just sitting here, and trying to ignore the way the remnants of the dream clung to him like spiderwebs, whispering hurry and danger and death.

After a while he went inside, and by the time he'd refilled his coffee cup Jess was stumbling into the kitchen, her face sleep-blurred and soft. "Were you studying?"

Sam shook his head and got out another cup. "Just woke up early."

"You're stressing," she pronounced, after sipping her own coffee.

"I guess."

"Everyone knows you're gonna do great, Sam. You're borrowing trouble."

No, he thought grimly. I'm not. And I don't know why I know that, how I know it, but I do. "Maybe," he said instead.

She glanced at the clock over the stove. "Shit. I gotta get going."

He sat at the table, listening to her rattling around, the shower coming on, radio playing softly from the bedroom. He didn't want more coffee. Suddenly he felt desperately tired, and the idea of going to class, study group, was just about overwhelming. All he wanted to do was sleep. And not to dream.

Instead he waited until Jess finished her shower, and then shivered under cooling water and forced himself to think about the metaphysics paper due in a week.

That night he went to bed so tired from class, writing, and lack of sleep that he didn't even respond to Jess's overtures. Just mumbled something about sorry, and was asleep before he could check on her reaction to that.

The dream was waiting. Pouncing like a predator well-hidden in shadow, sinking its claws into him, and he thrashed and struggled and jerked awake with Jess staring down at him, brows drawn together in a sleepy frown.

"Honey? You okay?"

Sam swallowed and tried to slow his breathing. "Bad dream," he managed.

"You want one of my Ambien?"

"N-no." He looked at the clock. Earlier, only three forty-four this time. Middle of the night. "Go back to sleep. Sorry I woke you up."

She watched him get up, and said, "I could make you some hot chocolate."

He shook his head, and when he looked back her eyes were closed.

In the living room he got out the bourbon, hands shaking so badly he wasn't sure he could pour without spilling it all on the floor. It tasted like smoke going down, sweet and piercing, and he swallowed two shots before he could make himself consider the images, so clear in his mind. Clearer than any dream should be, potent and throbbing with urgent power.

"It doesn't mean anything," Sam said out loud, staring at the label on the bottle. "Just a nightmare."

Wasn't surprised at all to know he didn't believe that. Not here in the dark, where truth was so hard to evade. He touched the bottle but didn't pour a third shot. Closed his eyes.

* * *

By Friday even Jess was fed up.

"Sam, you're not sleeping." She regarded him across the kitchen table, fingertips drumming the wood. "I mean, it's not like you can hide it from me. What's going on?"

He met her frustrated gaze and made himself shrug. "Stress, I guess. Look, I'm all right. It's just – there's a lot to think about right now, you know?"

Her face crumpled a little, and she looked away. "You're lying," she whispered.

"No, Jess. I'm not. It -- I'll pass."

"You look so tired," Jess said. "Is it the dreams?"

He had no idea what to say to her. Yes? Yes, Jess, I'm afraid to go to sleep because what I see in my dreams scares me so bad I can barely breathe? Except I can't say what it is I see, or who?

"Well, when you feel like talking about it," she said tightly, "I guess you know where to find me, don't you?"

He watched her go, his apology dying on his lips. Could tell her. This was Jess, after all; Jess who wasn't the judging type, Jess who had tolerated all of Sam's other little quirks the past year and a half without trying to change him too much, Jess who had seen and touched and kissed all his body's scars. Jess whom he hoped, one day, to marry. If he couldn't tell her this, what did that say about her? Him, their relationship?

"I don't think it's a dream," Sam whispered into the empty air. "I think it's something else."

He closed his eyes, and saw it all again. Never exactly the same, but so close it didn't much matter. Horseshoes and hand grenades. A building, a complex really, sterile and forbidding, fronted by a heavy wrought-iron gate, shaded by heavy trees. A procession of people making a single line out the front door, walking silently to press against the fence, watching him. And someone behind, but he could never quite see who it was. Someone important, the reason for the dreams, he was sure of it, but hidden behind the mass of people, reaching their arms through the fence, hands extended like supplicants. Help us.

And he just had time to taste the sadness in his mouth, the sense that it was too little too late, I'm sorry I wasn't here in time, and each time after the first he'd known what was coming next and it still hit him with all the power of that first dream. Bodies erupting into flame, faces twisting with agony and regret, and the white paint on the iron bubbling with the heat. All those people, subsiding into ash, and a hot dry wind gusting in Sam's face, the building crumbling from the inside. The tumbled remains of a holocaust only he could see.

All gone, and Sam woke each time with a scream on his lips, heart pounding with terror and anguish.

But last night had been different. Just a little, but in spite of the coffee and his own iron-willed determination he'd nodded off over his Ethics text, done a face-plant right over pages 66 and 67, and there it had all been. Building, voiceless faceless people, and he'd known, he had KNOWN it would end as the story built in his mind over decades had, flames and grief. But before that, he'd heard a voice, the first time it had spoken, and he knew that voice. Knew that gruff tone, half-teasing, half-weary: Shit happens, bro. Don't worry about it, you just take care of yourself.

Now, in the bright light of morning, the voice chilled him all over again. "Dean," Sam whispered, pressing his cold fingers to his eyelids. "Is that you?"

No one answered. He shivered, blinked away the afterimages, and climbed wearily to his feet.

* * *

Guilt was part of what let him be talked into going out Sunday. Guilt, and his unspoken fear of dreaming. He was an old hand at sleep deprivation, years of late-night study or cram sessions, and before that, much less savory and far more dangerous vigils. But the sense of warning, imminence, was a thousand percent stronger now, enough that he could almost hear an unseen clock ticking, closer and closer, and it might have been panic that made him say, "What the hell, sure," when Jess told him everyone was headed over to O'Shaughnessy's that night, hang out, drink a few beers, practice for the real end-of-term blowout a couple of weeks away.

"All you do is study," Jess said with a wry look. "And I know you know it already. So let's go, okay? Just – be normal for a while. All right?"

Normal. Sure. Sounded great.

So he went, and it was better than he'd thought, better anyway than sitting around trying so damn hard not to sleep, knowing eventually he'd lose the battle and there they'd be, staring at him as if they already knew he'd let them down, let them burn.

That might have been the reason he drank more than usual, beer and then Jaeger shots, nasty but effective, oh yeah. Fought down the memory of that first bottle, Dean grinning and saying, "Just don't say a word to Dad, you little shit, but graduation deserves a celebration, right," and the taste of herbs and possibilities on his tongue, along with furtive guilt. Dean hadn't known about the letters in Sam's backpack, the plans percolating in his head. All Dean had known was it was a beautiful night and his kid brother had just graduated high school. Unlike Dean, the guy who'd gotten his GED right at the end of Sam's junior year, and had had to be pushed into that, even then.

He drank and thought, I'm not sure I'll ever see Dean again. He drank to douse the sudden flare of anguish in his chest. And everyone else was drunk, too, a couple of them really drunk, and it was fine. He fit right in.

At closing time he staggered home with Jess, listening to her sweet giggle in his ear and feeling her lithe weight against his side, and saw his cell phone's message light blinking in the dimness.

Sam's buzz wavered and went away, as if someone had just thrown a bucket of ice water over his head. "Just a second," he said to Jess, not looking at her, staring at the phone.

"If you're going to throw up," she told him, pressing a moist beer-scented kiss on his chin, "you'd better make it quick. I'm not waiting forever."

"I'll be right there," he told her absently.

He didn't watch her go into the bedroom, didn't think about the promise of that kiss. His hands didn't shake while he picked up the phone, dialed his voice mail with a numb fingertip. The booze roiled in his stomach queasily.

The number wasn't one he recognized. The voice, though. That he knew. Recognized with a shock that sent the last tattered remnants of his buzz flying out the window.

"Sammy. It's Dad."

Sam sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs, barely registering the cold wood under his ass.

"I know I'm the last person you expect to hear from right now. All things considered." Gruff, and familiar. "But we have a situation. Your brother -- Dean's missing. I think he's in trouble. He always calls, always stays in touch. He was working alone, this thing in Texas. It's been a month, and I'm – involved with something. A long way from there. Something big."

The demon, Sam thought, blood pounding in his ears. Dad's catching up with it. And right on that thought's heels: He let Dean work alone?

"I can't go, Sammy. Not right now. You've got to go find your brother." His father cleared his throat, and Sam sat up when that voice thinned, became the orders he remembered. "Find him, make sure he's okay. You can get back to your – studies, later. You got it? Your brother needs you. Last known location was Amarillo, Texas. He was finishing up there, supposed to head to New Orleans, but my contacts there say he never made it. Find him, Sammy. Let me know."

Sam swallowed, and flinched when a feminine voice said, "To save this message, press one. To –"

He hit the one button and sat motionless at the table. And then jerked to his feet, half-running, barely making it to the bathroom before beer and Jaegermeister and bile came up, burning like fire.

* * *

"Jess. Wake up."

She grunted, then turned slowly, reaching up with her fists to rub her eyes. "What time is it?"

Sam sat on the edge of the bed. "Early. About seven."

Jess blinked at him. "You're already up? Didn't feel you come to bed."

Because I didn't, Sam thought, and drew a careful breath. "Listen. Something's come up. I gotta go out of town for a few days."

"Out of town?" She didn't look as sleepy now, sitting up and staring at him. "Right now? Did something happen?"

"You could say that. Yeah. It's, ah. Dean. My brother."

"You have a brother?" Jess asked blankly.

"He's -- Yeah. I need to take care of this. It's just a few days."

"Sam, you have your interview next WEEK. It's everything you've been working for, all this time, you can't just –"

"He's, ah. He's missing," Sam whispered, standing on shaky legs. "I gotta know, Jess. If my –"

"If what?" She followed, face drawn with lines of worry. "Is this what all this has been about? Why you haven't been sleeping? Tell me, Sam!"

"I'm not sure yet. Jess, I gotta go. I'll call you. Okay?"

"You never even mentioned a brother before, and now you're -- Sam, this is a huge deal, you know?"

He nodded grimly, and made himself kiss her, and bent to pick up the packed bag he'd dropped by the door. "I know. I'll be back as fast as I can."

"But where are you going?" she called after him.

"I'll call you."

* * *

TBC. EB 


	2. Amarillo by Morning

**Knock on the Sky**

**By EB**

**©2006**

**Chapter Two**

**Amarillo by Morning**

He used his credit card to buy a plane ticket, and had to smile because really, it was sort of ironic. A lifetime of scams and credit-card fraud, and now to chase after Dean he'd be using a real one, a card with his own name on it, and wouldn't Dean be shocked? Could hear him now: Dude, what the fuck? All that fake plastic and you use the real thing? Have I taught you nothing?

By nine-thirty he was in the air, drinking cup after cup of crappy airline coffee and watching the kids across the aisle. Two boys, arguing passionately about everything from movies to computer games to homework, and Sam felt a sweet surge in his belly, listening. They were closer in age than him and Dean, but the banter was familiar, that surface heat and underlying warmth. He'd wished for normalcy, had sought it for years now, but arguing with Dean had been normal, had been brotherly, familiar as breathing, and now he looked back on it and thought, What else did I not see when I had it? And something's happened, I feel it, taste it, and where was I?

The flight landed in Dallas at just after three, local time. He felt the heat like a faceful of hot syrup, soggy and heavy, and winced while he made his way to the rental booths.

The car was newish, burgundy and got good mileage. Dean would hate it. Sam sighed and threw his bag in the trunk. No hidden compartments, no weapons cache. If Dean's trouble was supernatural, Sam wasn't real well-equipped. Not even a damn bottle of holy water. And forget guns: he didn't even have a pocket knife.

When he started the engine, he blinked and realized he'd expected a roar, not this tame even idling. Throat aching, he slid the rental into gear and headed into traffic.

Long time since he'd been in Texas, and a few miles down the highway he thought about how big this damn state was, how he should have taken a second flight to Amarillo or Lubbock, or wherever the hell ever, just to save this godawful boring drive. But it was familiar, wearily so, and he pushed the car's sewing-machine engine up to eighty-five and hoped it wouldn't just fall to pieces somewhere around Wichita Falls or Paducah. Turned the radio dial past headbanging music, and then back. Sam always hated Dean's metal shit, but the cock-rock crap felt weirdly comforting now.

At least it would probably keep him awake. Probably.

Pushing it hard, only a couple of two-minute stops for more coffee and a couple of candy bars, he blew into Amarillo just past sundown. He found a motel that looked cheap enough that his card wouldn't be rejected, and took his bag into the grim little room. Smelled familiar, like home, and something inside him sighed, relaxed a trifle. It was all doable. Dean was fine. It would all turn out to be a miscommunication. The dream, just a dream.

He took off his shoes and didn't remember hitting the mattress.

* * *

It's different this time. The building is in shadow, no hot sun to break through the tree cover, and the grounds are empty, the grass burnt and yellow and dead.

"I don't see him," his father says, and Sam looks over his shoulder, sees John Winchester, the Great White Hunter, standing with his hands over his face, fingers covering his eyes. "I can't see him. He's gone."

He isn't gone, he's right here, Sam says, but when he turns back to point there is no Dean. Dust skirls over the parched ground, and the gate clanks and then falls.

There is dust inside the halls, too, long empty hallways that have not been used in decades, and the walls send back echoes of Sam's boots, dull thuds like a slow, tired heartbeat. When he touches the near wall, he feels it, too, a sluggish thump, and calls, "Dean?"

A face materializes in the tile, sexless and expressionless, and says, "You can't go home."

Before Sam can say anything, it's gone, and the hallway has opened to a wide, grassy courtyard. Here the ground is green and healthy, the trees heavy with fruit and flowers. In the middle sits Dean, eyes closed, a smile on his face.

"Dean," Sam whispers, and the empty doorway flings him back, sprawling in the dust.

Dean's eyes open, a calm green gaze, and behind him Sam can see numberless people, seated as he is, backs straight and faces empty of anything human. Dean's lips move and so do theirs, and Sam hears it as a chorus, a whisper and a susurrus of echoes: Don't worry about it, dude. Go back. You can't come here. We won't let you.

Dean smiles sweetly, and Sam screamed, snapping upright in his hard motel bed, clawing at the covers. No, NO, don't take him away from me, I'm sorry, I'll do anything, just don't put him someplace where I can never find him again.

* * *

He didn't sleep again. Couldn't afford to. He paced the room, fists clenching and unclenching. Not even a clue where to start, not a goddamn thing. Could go to the cops, what normal people with missing relatives would do, but unless he'd been arrested for something, Dean wasn't about to have any doings with local law enforcement. Not with as many outstanding traffic tickets on his record as he'd gotten over the years.

Which left Sam absolutely nowhere. Dean was certainly someplace, but he might as well have vanished into thin air at this point, for all Sam knew. And it curdled in his gut, anger and fear and resentment all pulling into a tight hot mass of I don't want to be here, doing this.

His father's number rang four times before voice mail picked up. Sam sighed and said, "Okay, I'm here. Amarillo. And I've got zip, Dad. Do you even know what he was working on? And look, I mean, a month ago? You waited a MONTH and you're just now calling me for help? He could be anywhere!"

He had to breathe, force air into his lungs before he could go on. "I gotta have more than this, okay? Anything, whatever you know. But Texas is a big-ass state, all right, and Amarillo isn't small, and I got -- I gotta be someplace next week, someplace important. I need information, Dad. Whatever you got. Call me."

At seven he walked over to the little café attached to the motel, ate a breakfast he couldn't taste. The need to move, the need to DO SOMETHING, was overwhelming, and he threw some money on the table and strode out, already fishing for the car key in his pocket.

Barely eight in the morning, but the car was already toasty warm. He turned up the air conditioning and then just sat. How long until Dad called him back? Who the hell knew? Christ, he had nothing.

So think of the routine. Dean was big on routine. First stop in a new place, just like Dad: find a place to stay. None of them ever had money, not enough to stay anywhere nice, so it would be cheap and probably close to the highway.

Well, that narrowed it down to only dozens instead of hundreds. Sam sighed and put the car in gear, turned to back up. Hey, at least it wasn't Chicago, or L.A. Amarillo wasn't tiny, but not exactly a bustling metropolis, either.

He froze, then reached for his wallet, stomping the brakes. His hands shook while he dug in the compartment behind his license. Never thought, never even occurred to him, and now he was sure it wouldn't be there. Just when he needed it, no –

But it was. He smoothed the edges of the photograph, smiling and feeling his smile fade just as quickly. When had this been? Summer before his senior year? Or junior? Dean had been twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. Hated posing for photographs, so Sam had snuck this one, snapped it on that crap throwaway camera right as Dean looked up from whatever he was doing. Eyebrows lifted questioningly, and otherwise as relaxed as Sam could remember seeing him.

It was a good picture, and he'd tucked it away like a talisman, because there were so few. Because Dad had some kind of weird thing about photographs by the time Sam left, and Dean, although Sam didn't think he was quite as superstitious about it, always went with what Dad said. He actually had one photo of the three of them back at the apartment, but he'd carried this picture of Dean around for four or five years now, and he wondered if it would freak Dean out to know that when things got lonely, during his freshman year when he felt as if family had become a myth, a campfire story, he took Dean's picture out and stared at it and thought that if nothing else, no mother, no father, he still had a brother, someone who'd always, always be there, no matter what. Knowing it let him sleep at night, and get up and trudge to class the next morning.

He swallowed and put the photo in his breast pocket. If Dean knew, he'd give Sam shit about it for months. Never hear the end of the teasing. And right now, Sam thought, he'd give just about anything to hear it. To know that Dean WAS okay, that he was alive and well and not moldering someplace, on the losing end of –

Well. That wasn't exactly a productive line of thought there, was it? He cleared his throat, took his foot off the brake pedal, and blinked the haze out of his eyes before pulling out of the parking space.

* * *

By noon his father hadn't called back, and he'd scouted out fourteen different motels. Not the big chains; the smaller local places, home-owned and all that, because it was what Dad always preferred and what Dean was used to. The photograph had gotten him nothing. No one recognized Dean's picture, and Sam had no idea which alias he was using this time around. Could be literally anything under the sun, which made names less than no help, and the picture was old; for all Sam knew, Dean could have grown his hair out the past few years, or shaved his damn head.

Motel number fifteen, though, was a different story. More run-down than most, a front office smelling of cigarettes and burnt coffee, and a proprietor whose mouth had bid a sad adieu to most of his teeth at some point in the distant past, giving him a heavy lisp.

"Think I've theen him, yep."

"You've -- You recognize him?" Sam stared at him.

The man pushed his gimme cap further back on his head, scratched his bristly cheek, and nodded. "A while back. Come in here and paid cath on the barrel."

"Cath – Okay, great. He -- When did he leave?"

"He wath the crathee one."

Sam squinted. "The what?"

The man gave him a dour look. "Cray-thee," he said, enunciating his speech impediment even more clearly. Or less. He made a circling motion at his temple with one plump finger. "Loony."

Sam nodded, then froze. "Why do you say that?"

"Talking to himthelf. To people that weren't there. Thtuff like that."

"How do." Sam cleared his throat. "Do you know where he was headed? After he left?"

"Didn't really leave. Just didn't come back one day, left all his thtuff." The owner lifted his chin and jerked it to the side, indicating the murky room behind the office. "Thtuck it all back there, thee if he'd ever come back for it. Never did. Thought I'd thell it or thomething, ain't got around to it yet."

Sam touched his forehead, where a tiny, icy blade of pain had formed. Might be stress, might just be the effort of parsing the man's speech. "Would you mind if I took a look at it? He's – my brother."

"Family, huh. Thure. Hell, take it with you, I don't care. Thtuff's ath craythee ath he wath." The man's eyes narrowed. "You got thome kinda ID?"

Sam showed his license, and the man said, "That ain't hith name."

"He sometimes uses…different names," Sam said softly. The man considered and nodded, and Sam thought, Well, he's already called him crazy, guess that doesn't sound so weird after all.

But the "thtuff" Dean had left behind gave him a chill. The motel owner might not realize it, but this was pretty much everything Dean had: that familiar battered duffel bag, a few changes of clothes, toiletries, a couple of books. Sam swallowed, hefting the Edith Hamilton volume in his hand. Dean wasn't much for research; could certainly do it if required, but had never found it all that personally stimulating. But he adored mythology, had read this book nearly to tatters, could cough up the most obscure reference purely from memory. Holding this threadbare trade paperback was like holding a part of Dean in his hand, and his throat grew tight while the motel owner prattled about what a weirdo his brother had been.

"Noithy," the man mumbled. "Other gueth didn't like it. Yelling and talking all the time. Had more than one athk to get a different room, down the row, jutht to get away from all that noith."

Sam slid the book back into the bag and zipped it, brushing a heavy cobweb off the back with a frown. "I'll give it back to him when I find him," he said, straightening and slinging the bag over his shoulder. "Thanks for not just throwing it away. He'll – appreciate that." He pauses. "What name did he use?"

"On the tag there."

Sam angled his head so he could read the tag pinned to the bag. Drover. Well, it was more than he'd had. He thanked the guy again, and went outside. Put the bag in the trunk, lips pressed tight with worry, and dialed his father's number again.

"All right, then." Sam blew a long sigh. "I picked up his trail, but it's real cold. He stayed at the Dunes Motel, and he left his bag, all his things. The guy at the motel said he was crazy." Sam snorted a little. "I mean, I don't know if that's normal-crazy or not so normal, but Dean would never leave his shit here. So that's. Well." He swallowed. "Not a real good sign. Would you call me back? I mean, we need to discuss this. Don't just – leave me hanging here. Do you know something? What was he working on? Dad, TALK to me."

He stowed the phone in his pocket, and climbed back in the car.

* * *

"Missing persons?"

The guy at the desk gave him an impassive look. "If they've been gone less than 24 hours –"

Sam shook his head vigorously. "A month," he said hoarsely. "He's been missing a month. My brother."

"Have a seat. Somebody'll come talk to you."

He sat on a hard plastic chair in the hallway, alertly watching. No one came out right away, and he had time to think about how much police stations all seemed the same, no matter where you went. The same odor of old coffee and disinfectant, and underneath it body odor and a smell like old books, papery and dusty and ancient. He wondered if even new buildings like this would smell the same after the first week.

"Looking for somebody?"

He flinched and stood, already nodding. The woman was tall – tall as Dean, he thought, but not as tall as me – and unsmiling, no uniform but a severe gray pants suit, her dark hair pulled into a sensible ponytail. "I'm Detective Ware." She didn't put a hand out to shake.

Sam nodded again. "Sam Winchester. I'm looking for my brother. He –"

"Come into my office."

Ware's office was tiny and as uncompromising as the woman herself, utilitarian furniture and nothing in the way of personal objects. Sam sat uneasily in the proffered chair and kept on watching her.

"Name?" she asked, fingers poised over an unseen keyboard.

"Dean. Winchester."

She typed it in, and Sam shook his head. "No. No, he wasn't -- He was using a different name. I'm sorry."

That got him a narrow look. "Alias?"

"He -- Drover. Glen or Shawn."

"Which one?"

He gave a helpless shrug. "Could be either. I don't know."

"I see." Any trace of warmth that might have been there was gone now; her lips were tight, but she typed it in, surveyed the screen he couldn't see, then shook her head. "Not a thing."

Sam slumped a little. "Oh."

"When did he disappear?"

"It would have been – September sometime. A month ago. Roughly."

More typing, and she gave a crisp shake of her head. "Four missing-persons reports filed during that time period. No one by any of those names, and three were women. And unless your brother's black –"

"No."

She watched him, and then seemed to soften a little, sighing. "All right." A clipboard appeared, pen held out alongside it. "Fill this out. There'll be –"

"Wait." Craythee. Dean had been craythee, the lisping guy had said. Sam swallowed. "Any John Does?"

Ware kept on holding out the clipboard. "How so?"

"I mean, picked up. He -- He might not have been thinking very well."

"History of mental instability? Illness?"

"Not -- No. Nothing I know of. But he." Sam considered, and said carefully, "Things could have changed. I haven't seen him in a while." Anything could have happened. Anything at all.

She pursed her lips, and then laid the clipboard on her desk and turned slowly to the computer. "It'll take a minute." Typing, she said, "What sort of business is your brother in?"

"I don't -- I guess he's sort of a drifter." A lie, one that felt shabby and sour on his tongue. Dean was so much more than that.

Ware sat back, glancing from her screen back to Sam. "Vagrant, picked up on August 13th. Non compos. Never did get a name. Male, age 25-30." She had blue eyes, Sam saw, blue and chilly. "Remanded for psych evaluation. Don't have anything more than that."

August. That long ago? Sam stared at her. "Where?" he whispered.

She said nothing for a moment, then reached out and turned the monitor in his direction. "That him?"

Standard mug shot, although there was no booking number. Hadn't been arrested, then. A week's growth of beard over drawn cheeks, brows drawn together hooding the eyes, but no disguising that startling green. Dean's eyes always went green when he was tired, when he was hurt --

"Yes," Sam whispered. "That's Dean."

* * *

TBC. EB 


	3. Baby's On Fire

**Knock on the Sky**

**by EB  
(c)2006**

**Chapter Three  
Baby's on fire**

He found Dean's car the next afternoon.

At first he'd thought, Can't be too many black '67 Impalas in a place like Amarillo, Texas. Piece of cake. Except he was starting from practically zero: no idea where Dean had left his vehicle, and no idea how long it would sit wherever until someone came to claim it.

And Impalas were more plentiful than he'd hoped. Souped-up low-riders painted garish purple or eye-gouging green; rusted-out hulks up on blocks in somebody's front yard.

But he got lucky this time, only three hours of driving slowly past wrecker yards and impounds and there it was, in a half-empty wrecker yard: dusty but undamaged, tucked between a shiny new Ford F250 and a beat-up Torino with a missing back window. Sam parked across the street, walking over on legs that shook a little beneath him, heart thumping like the bass rattling the windows of a passing Mustang.

He didn't have to fake the look of mixed annoyance and worry while he faced the gray-haired Hispanic man at the wrecker office.

"You sure that's your car?" the guy asked, narrowing his eyes. "You got a title or something?"

Sam met his look and shrugged. "Title's in the car. What do you care? I'll pay."

"That's a valuable automobile. Classic."

"Yeah," Sam agreed thinly. "And it's my brother's, and he's gonna want it back."

The teenaged boy standing behind the man slumped. "Aw, man. Another couple of weeks and we coulda sold it."

Sam didn't bother hiding the surge of righteous anger at that comment, and the older man said quickly, "Gonna cost you for storage, too. Ten bucks a day."

"I'll pay the towing fee," Sam said evenly. "Plus a hundred for maintenance. That's it."

"Now, I dunno about –"

Sam smiled, and the guy shut up. He'd have popped the trunk, after nobody came for it. Probably helped himself to some free goodies. "And we'll call it even."

The guy gave a grudging nod. "Yeah. All right."

Sam handed over a couple of crisp hundreds, thinking bleakly about how many more times he could afford to get cash on his credit card.

"Pleasure doing business with you," the guy said, grinning and showing yellow teeth.

"Whatever," Sam muttered.

The Impala looked fine. Sometime over the past few years, in addition to letting Dean off the leash to work solo, Dad must have also passed along the car. Sam stood a few feet away, swallowing elation and rage and sorrow. Two months. Two months and change, and Dad had only called him four days ago. Was that how long it had taken him to NOTICE? Whoops, had a feeling I forgot something. How long between noticing and doing anything about it? A month? Six weeks? Had Dad looked for Dean at all? Or been too swept up in his quest to give more than a passing thought: He'll turn up sometime? Only Dean hadn't, and finally Dad took an extra five minutes and called Sam.

Funny how years of separation hadn't changed a thing. Anger like an old friend, clenching at his throat and balling his hands into fists at his sides. Hurt – if you walk away don't come back – and regret, because he'd gone and hadn't gone back and things had happened, things had changed and he hadn't been around to see them, to fix what he could fix or head them off at the pass beforehand. He'd left, and Dean was gone and here was the car, the beloved Impala handed down by their father, Dad who knew how much Dean loved this sleek machine, knew it was another way to tie Dean even closer to him, bonds of gratitude.

The spare set of keys was where Dad had always kept it – Dean wasn't about to change a family tradition, and when Sam reached under the left rear wheel well he felt a blob of duct tape, familiar shapes stuck fast, and pried it away.

When he popped the trunk he could see no one had been inside. Surprised him: expected that compartment to be – not precisely empty, but definitely pawed-over. But it looked about the same as always, just a few common trunk items, empty gasoline can and Dad's ancient car-wash kit, and underneath the plywood spare cover, paydirt. Sam swallowed, and touched the stock of one sleek sawed-off shotgun. Maybe the wrecker guy opened the trunk, saw the arsenal inside, and thought better of messing with anyone who carried around this much materiel. Guns and ammo and the long, lethal sword in the sheath Dad himself had made the summer Sam was twelve. Elmira, New York, and the sharp smell of tooled leather and sweet oil.

He slammed the trunk and unlocked the driver's-side door with fingers that shook more than he liked. The inside was another barrage of familiar scents, onslaught of years of bickering over who got shotgun and are we there yet and the ghosts of thousands of endless highway miles. Nothing changed. Dean's tapes in a battered shoebox, sheaves of maps and a wad of parking tickets stuffed under the seat, glovebox filled with receipts – no doubt for fake credit-card transactions – and an empty Ruger clip.

Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to suggest that the man whose car this now was had been insane the last time he drove it.

"Not insane," Sam said out loud, flinching at the sound of his own voice. "It's something else." Dean was the sanest person he knew. Always had been. Lots more sane than Dad, and at times, probably had both feet more firmly on the ground than Sam himself. At least in those teeth-gritting months prior to Sam's departure.

The car started with a deep baritone snarl, and Sam smiled and felt his throat tighten. That was the way a car ought to sound. Strong, no-nonsense, capable.

For a second he was sure – positive – that Dean was sitting behind him. Lip curled in disgust at taking the back seat, sprawled out like he really did own the Impala and all she contained.

He kept himself from looking only with real effort. Put the car in gear and spared the wrecking-yard owner another dour look while he passed the office. Nice profit there, buddy. Won't be seeing you. Get the rental, drop it off, cab it back to the motel and he could head out.

Which left only the glaring question of where to, exactly?

* * *

If Detective Ware wasn't exactly the friendliest officer Sam had ever met, she was marginally sympathetic when he called late that afternoon, and after he did some pleading, she gave him the name of the officer who'd taken Dean into custody the night of August 13th. Sam drove Dean's car to the station close to the end of the shift, and waited until the guy came out.

"Oh, yes sir. I remember him."

Sam saw the way the officer's eyes went unreadably blank. Great, Sam thought. This is gonna go real well. "Can you tell me what happened?" he asked out loud.

The cop – an excruciatingly neat man named Williams, uniform trousers so deftly pressed Sam was pretty sure he'd cut his finger on the razor-straight crease – drew a deep breath. "I got a call around six that evening. Possible drunk-and-disorderly. When I investigated I found the gentleman walking down Wolflin Avenue. He wasn't -- That is to say, when I tried to see what the problem was, he was pretty resistant."

Sam leaned forward. "Can you remember what he was saying?"

"Didn't understand it, sir." Williams' impassive look flickered a tiny bit before tightening down again. "I called for backup, and we ended up taking him to the ER for evaluation. And that's -- The last I heard about him."

"He –" Sam swallowed. "You said you didn't understand him. Was he – slurring his speech?"

"No, sir. Least I don't think he was." Williams smiled suddenly, looking down. "See, it wasn't English. Sounded like – German or something."

"Dean doesn't speak German."

Looking uncomfortable, Williams shrugged. "Sorry, sir. Best I can do."

"Yeah, ah." Sam nodded. "Thanks."

"Look, I'm sorry about your brother." For a moment Williams relaxed, pausing in the middle of turning to go. "Got four of them myself. Would do anything for them, even the ones I don't get along with so good, you know?"

"Yeah," Sam said faintly. "Me, too."

Outside the station, he lingered by the car. Getting late, and the idea of staying another day in Amarillo was frustrating, but where the hell else was he gonna go? Hospital? See if anyone knew what happened to John Doe # Whichever, way back in August? Did they even give out that kind of information? He had no way of knowing.

"Nice car."

Sam flinched and turned, forcing a smile when he saw Ware standing on the curb. "Thanks. It's my brother's."

She nodded slowly. Unsmiling, but she came closer. "Want a word of advice?"

"I'll take anything at this point."

"Santa Elena. About two hours northeast of here."

He watched her carefully. "What's in Santa Elena?"

"State hospital. One of two." She cocked her head a little to one side, studying him. "Worth a shot."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. That where they take –"

"I'm not saying he's there. I have no idea. Without a name –" She made a helpless gesture with her hands, before crossing her arms. "But it's not far, and if he's really non compos, that may well be where he wound up."

"Yeah," he whispered. "Guess so."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

* * *

He was near the city outskirts when he made himself think about it. The urge to get somewhere, DO something, clashed heavily against the knowledge that it would be dark before he could reach Santa Elena. If Dean was in the state hospital, it sure as hell wouldn't be a good time to visit. Tomorrow would be the earliest he could see him, probably.

Pulling into a gas station, Sam put the Impala in neutral and grabbed his Texas map. Screw it. Better now than –

Knifelike pain exploded between his eyes, and the map fluttered to the floor when he clapped his hands over his face, groaning between clenched teeth. Images careening by: Jess, her familiar face drawn in terror and the angle all wrong, like Sam was looking up at her, up to – ceiling? No, Dean's face, Dean's slanted sardonic smile and eyes meeting his, sad and knowledgeable, flames roaring up behind him. Whispering countless voices: You can't go home, you can't, go home, go home. Wind whistling through the hallways, dust in his eyes, in his throat, a taste like death and grief and the smell of blood in the air. Blood and smoke, Jess, DEAN –

"Sir?"

Tapping, tapping, each little thud like a bludgeon to the head, and Sam blinked blearily between his fingers, squinted in the waning red light of the sun. A face stared at him through the open window. Bearded, quizzical, with a smear of grease on the cheekbone. "You all right, son?" the man asked. He wore a mechanic's canvas jumpsuit, stained and old.

"Fine," Sam gasped, and realized there were tears on his face. He wiped his cheeks with ice-cold fingers. "Just – headache."

"Yeah. All righty, then. Got some aspirin in the store if you need 'em."

"Th-Thanks, I'll be okay."

"Suit yourself."

The headache was no lie. Fierce and immediate, crucifying pain behind his eyes. What the fuck had that been? Like a nightmare, only he wasn't asleep this time, very much awake. His head hurt too much to bring it all into focus.

The question of pressing on to Santa Elena was moot; he'd be lucky to find a motel in the shape he was in. Shading his eyes with one shaking hand, he put the car in gear and swallowed nausea. Anything. Just someplace dark, quiet, wait it out. Could figure out what it meant when the act of blinking wasn't so goddamn painful.

Driving like an overcautious 80-year-old, he found a Holiday Inn near the highway entrance, and shuffled inside. The clerk watched him carefully, and Sam wiped his streaming eyes again and whispered, "Migraine," and she nodded and gave him a key.

The room was blessedly dim. He sat on the edge of the one bed, rocking until the nausea took over, and flung himself into the tiny bathroom.

* * *

_TBC. EB_


	4. Do the Sweet Pea

**Knock on the Sky**

**By EB**

**©2006**

**Chapter Four**

**Do the Sweet Pea**

It was still dark when he woke up, clawing at the sheets, flailing at something that wasn't there. No fire, no empty dust-filled hallways, just dread thick as glue in his throat and the press of time, no time, gotta hurry, Sammy-boy, time's a'wasting while you get your beauty sleep.

He sat up with a muffled cry and glared around the room. Empty, quiet, dark. Five forty-two by the clock on the table. Early. Late, Jesus, he should be on the road already.

It took seeing the used towels on the floor and looking in the bathroom mirror before he remembered bits of the previous evening. The images, and the pain that had followed, stampeded through his head like horses shod with spiked iron shoes. From nowhere his brain coughed up lyrics, Johnny gets the feeling he's surrounded by horses, horses. Patti Smith, God, Dean hated that song. Horses, coming in in all directions, white shining silver, and Sam scrubbed his face with both hands, pressing hard against his eyes. Dean, then Jess. All he could do. Only one man, after all. A man who still felt a lot like a boy, wishing someone would tell him what to do next, which direction to go. Leave a goddamn trail of breadcrumbs. Something.

He gazed at his reflection, saw rings under his eyes so dark they looked like lampblack, and turned on the tap with a vicious twist of his wrist.

Back in the bedroom, dressed, he called, and Jess picked up after the third ring. "Sam?"

"Hey." He closed his eyes and felt a little of the iron-tight tension leave his shoulders. "You doing okay?"

"Sam, where ARE you? You didn't even call –"

"I'm sorry," he blurted. "Things -- I've been busy. Looking."

Her voice sounded morning-rough, thick with sleep. "Did -- Did you find him? Your brother?"

He paused, gnawing on the inside of his lip, then said, "Not yet. Closer, though. I think maybe I know where he is. Maybe."

"It's just –" He heard noise on the other end, Jess's whispered "fuck," and Sam snapped, "What's going on?" Terror quick and metallic in his throat.

"Nothing. The clock fell off the table." She sounded breathless. "I need some coffee."

"Oh man, it's what, five there?"

"Not even. It's okay, I gotta –" She yawned, and mumbled, "-- need to get up soon anyway. You're the early riser."

He nodded to himself, smiling a little. "Yeah, I know. Listen, I should, you know. Get going."

"Sam? You're coming home?"

"Not yet. I just -- I have a lead, Jess. I gotta follow it."

"Would you call me tonight? Just – call me?"

"Yeah. Of course. What time?"

"Any time, anything's good. I want to know what's going on."

"Yeah," Sam breathed. "So do I."

* * *

He felt better after a scalding cup of coffee and a burrito in the motel's tiny café. Better still when he climbed into the Impala and turned it in the direction of the highway. By the map, Santa Elena wasn't far. Two hours, a little time for wandering, and he'd be there. Nine o'clock at the latest.

With Amarillo behind him, he kept one hand on the wheel and punched in Dad's number.

"Think I got a lead on him. There's a hospital in Santa Elena. State hospital. According to the cops, that could be where he wound up." He glanced in the rearview mirror, back to the white lines on the highway. "Dad, where the hell are you? I mean, you asked ME for help, remember? This wasn't my idea, so -- You might call me. Whatever. Later."

He tossed the cell phone on the passenger seat and gripped the wheel harder, hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

It took longer than he'd thought. Plenty of signs, no question he was going the right direction, but traffic was heavy, and he missed the first turnoff, had to go through downtown. Santa Elena was a sleepy-looking town, small city really, smaller than Amarillo but big enough to have a college, a shitload of fast-food joints and dozens of churches. Trees, more than he'd imagined in sere north Texas, and a surprisingly wide, bustling river slicing through. Across the river, he saw a sign pointing ahead, Santa Elena State Hospital, and Sam nodded to himself. All right, then. About time.

The road curved around a large open field, buildings camouflaged by the plentiful cottonwoods clustered ahead. His mouth had gotten very dry, and he was aware that his heart was thudding in his chest. No reason, but no mistaking the cold hands, the taste of metal on his tongue. This sense of – imminence, foreboding.

Then he saw the main building, stately-looking between the many trees, and it took hearing the tires crackling in gravel to make him pay attention to the road, steer in the direction of a long narrow parking lot. Because he knew that building, recognized it. Had dreamed about it more times than he wanted to remember. The trees, and the sturdy brick walls, the heavy iron gates like outstretched fingers pointing imploringly at the sky.

He turned jerkily, and brought the Impala to a shaky standstill just inside the turnoff. Climbed out and staggered, knees buckling, until he grasped the hot metal of the door and clawed his way upright.

He'd dreamed this building. And that was because Dean was HERE. Clarity like a bolt of raw blue lightning: I've had it all along. I've SEEN it all along, even before I knew he was missing. I've SEEN this place.

"Dean," Sam wheezed, clutching the door of Dean's car like a lifeline.

* * *

There was a gate with a guard at the parking-lot entrance. The man looked down at him from his booth, face sweaty and impassive. "Can I do for you."

"I'm here to visit a patient," Sam said, squinting upward.

A clipboard appeared in the man's hand. "Sign in."

He signed the paper, and took the card the guard handed him. Visitor's pass. "Park over yonder," the guard told him, pointing at the skinny line of parking lot beyond the gate.

"Thanks."

He left the Impala parked in the scant shade of one dry-looking cottonwood and walked fast up the sidewalk. This wasn't the only building; there were others, smaller and newer-looking, and a string of what looked like pre-fab cottages off to the left, in a neat sterile line. Tables riveted to the ground to his right, chairs, and a handful of people sitting or standing around, smoking or just hanging out. None of them looked insane. A girl laughed, shading her eyes to watch Sam's progress, and he forced an awkward smile.

None of them was Dean. None of them were the people in his dream. The ones ranked behind his brother, standing or sitting but always there, echoing his sad, sweet words.

Sam shivered under the hot yellow sun and hurried to the main entrance.

Inside smelled unlike any hospital he'd ever entered. Nothing particularly medicinal; more like the odors of a grade-school cafeteria, old food and disinfectant and over it all, the sweetish smell of dust and mildew. He stood motionless for a second, getting his bearings, and saw a woman seated at a reception desk ahead.

The woman didn't smile at his approach. "Can I help you?"

Shoving his cold hands in his pockets, Sam nodded. "I'm here to see a patient."

"Visiting hours are this afternoon," she said without inflection. "Three to six. They're posted."

"Yeah, I saw that. Listen, I, ah." He swallowed, and said, "You may – have been waiting for me. Someone like me. Family."

His resolve faltered under her steady unimpressed stare. "I think my brother's here," he lumbered on. "He'd be – a John Doe, probably. Or an alias."

The woman didn't say anything for a moment. Then, grudgingly, she replied, "Hang on a second," and got up to vanish through an unmarked doorway to the rear of the reception area.

"Something I can help you with, sir?"

He looked over and saw a security guard, dark-skinned face wearing the same non-expression as the receptionist's. Wondered if maybe this was the generic all-purpose look for people working at a state mental hospital. Who knew? Sam sure as hell didn't.

He gestured at the empty desk in the kiosk. "She's – helping me."

"All right, then." The guard reached up to take his cap off and rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead. "Hot already."

Sam nodded jerkily. "Yeah." His hands were still frozen.

The door opened again, emitting the receptionist and a harried-looking woman, absently brushing at wrinkled slacks while she came to the window. "Sir?"

"Yeah. I -- I think my brother's here."

The woman gave a slow nod. "And he's a John Doe, you said?"

"I think. It's all the cops in Amarillo were able to give me."

"Do you have a picture?"

"Yeah." He fumbled in his hip pocket, drew out his wallet and Dean's photograph and held it out. The woman – administrator, she had that look – gazed at it for a brief moment, and her brow drew together in a frown, aging her. Her look was sharp and no longer tired-looking.

"He's your brother?"

"Yeah. Dean. Dean Winchester."

"Just a second."

She took the picture with her, and Sam thought about calling out, hey, that's the only one I got, lady, and another door he hadn't noticed until now opened, next to the reception area. The administrator poked her head out. "Come on back."

He hurried forward, and took the photograph when she held it out.

"I'm Nelda Rios," she said, an awkward smile coming and going on her face. "I'm the chief nurse executive."

"Sam Winchester."

"You have an ID?"

He showed his license, and she nodded. "Come down here."

A long, narrow hallway – dust-free, he noted with dull anxiety – led past several small offices, culminating in a split between four larger ones. Rios took him into the third, and gestured at a chair. "Have a seat. When did your brother get here?"

He sat uneasily, hands clenched on the arms of the chair. "I'm not sure. August, maybe. He was taken into custody on August 13th, in Amarillo. Is he here?"

She didn't immediately reply. Seated in a big leather-covered chair, she picked up a telephone and asked, "Is Robert in his office? Yes, can you have him stop by here? Thanks, Julie." When she hung up, her face was impassive again. "What was he picked up for?"

Sam paused, and said, "Look, is this a yes or a no? I just want to see my brother."

Rios's gaze flicked to a point over his shoulder, and Sam glanced over to see a man at the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Robert, this young man's looking for his brother. Can you show him the picture, Mr. Winchester?"

He hadn't put it away yet. His fingers shook when he held it out, and the man took it, squinting a little at it. Then his eyes widened, and he gave Sam an astounded look. "This is your brother?"

Sam nodded. "He's been missing –"

"Jesus," the man breathed. "It's James."

Sam blinked, and Rios cleared her throat. "It's what we've been calling him," she said in a warmer voice. "Primarily."

"What's his name?" Robert demanded.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Oh. Sorry. Robert Klinefeld." He held out a hand. "I'm the clinical director."

Sam shook his hand, nodding slowly. "Sam Winchester. His name isn't James. It's Dean."

Klinefeld exchanged an unreadable look with Rios, and Sam blurted, "What? Why's that – surprising?"

Gently, Rios said, "He isn't aware of Ja – Dean's clinical situation."

Klinefeld pulled up the room's only other chair and sat down abruptly. "Does your brother have a history of mental illness?"

"No. Nothing. That's -- None of this makes sense. Dean's sane, he's -- No."

"You have to understand." Klinefeld's smile was small but genuine, still startled-looking. "He's been here nearly two months, and we have a lot of names. But none of them is Dean."

Sam leaned forward, heart speeding up again. "What's wrong with him?" he asked hoarsely. "What happened?"

Another exchange of looks, and then Klinefeld nodded. "Ja -- Dean has gotten quite a bit of attention since his arrival," he said slowly. "Partly because of his John-Doe status, partly the, shall we say, nature of his affliction."

"Which is?" Sam demanded. "Tell me!"

"He's dissociative," Rios said calmly. "In his case, a form of psychosis."

Sam glared at her. Had Dean told them about the family business? He'd cut his own tongue out before he'd break Dad's cardinal rule. "Dean's not psychotic. I don't believe that, not –"

"The reason we're surprised to hear his real name," Klinefeld murmured, "is because he has so many. We felt sure one of them was real, but it's been impossible to determine which. No ID, no history, no family -- You can understand our predicament."

"No, I DON'T understand, what –"

"In layman's terms, you'd call it 'multiple personalities.'" Klinefeld cleared his throat. "Incorrect, of course, but never mind. James is his – Dean's – primary persona. Alter, we would call it."

Sam gazed blankly at him. "Alter?"

Klinefeld nodded. "Dean has quite a number of them. Quite distinct."

"And," said Rios quietly, "to our knowledge, none of those alters calls himself Dean."

* * *

_TBC. EB_


End file.
